Reality bites the bat

A little bit of West Midlands heritage lands on American television

PEOPLE have long complained that reality TV—the sort that features supposedly normal Americans making fools of themselves—was taking the country to the devil. Now the prince of darkness has arrived. The devil in question is Ozzy Osbourne, once of Black Sabbath, a pioneering (was there any other kind?) British heavy-metal band, who made his name by biting the head off a live bat on stage. A “reality sitcom” on MTV about his supremely dysfunctional yet curiously likeable family has become the biggest hit in the music channel's 21-year history.

One way of thinking of “The Osbournes” is as “The Simpsons” come to life with tight leather trousers and a Brummie accent. There are occasional rock-starish tantrums, and the interior decoration (satanic doorknobs and demon-head towel racks) is a little odd, but it is Ozzy's harmlessness, and the family's struggles to hold their essentially humdrum lives together, that give the show its appeal. If there is any acting involved, it is very hard to spot.

Drugged, drunk, shuffling, constantly swearing, the old headbanger finds everything a challenge, from using the remote control to house-training the pet: “These dogs are bloody (bleeping) all over my house! Why won't they (bleeping bleep) outside?” His battles with a domineering wife (who doubles as his manager) have their own poignancy. On one occasion, she puts a bubble machine on stage for his concert. “Bubbles?” he exclaims. “I'm the prince of (bleeping) darkness!”

As for his two teenage children, Ozzy provides a case study in the baby-boomer school of parenting: do what I say, not what I do. Ozzy, swathed in skin art, is far from pleased when his daughter, Kelly, gets a tiny tattoo. Addicted to pain-killers, with slurred speech and shaking hands, he tells son Jack not to take drugs.

After only six weeks, “The Osbournes” has more than 6m viewers, compared with MTV's average audience of barely 500,000. The cable channel is now fighting off attempts to poach the family for a second series. The Osbournes themselves, previously spotted only in the Court and Social pages of minor metal magazines, now pop up on chat shows everywhere. They have even been invited to next month's White House Correspondents' Dinner, where George Bush will be the guest of honour (Ozzy's confession to having relieved himself on the Alamo notwithstanding).

In an odd way, the Osbournes' success represents a victory for minor celebrities. These were exactly the people who were driven off the screen by the amateur stars of reality TV. Ozzy proves that reality TV is even better when done by professionals.